Happy memories of paternoster lifts | Letters

Your article about paternoster lifts (Why Germans fought so hard to save their paternoster lifts, 14 August) brought back happy memories of sixth-form voluntary service at school in central London in the late 1960s. To get out of any sport-related activity, my friend Sheila and I wheeled a tea trolley round all the outpatient departments of St Thomas' hospital on Wednesday afternoons, doing our bit to help those waiting to be seen. Our self-selected reward at the end of the day was a ride on the staff-only paternoster lift, something we'd never come across before or, as far as I'm concerned, since. Like Dejan Tuco, we thought it particularly daring to do the full circuit, going round the hidden top and bottom of the lift, where you could hear the mechanism grinding away. Such innocent pleasures!
Jane Marsh
London

" The piece brought back memories of the biochemistry department building at Imperial College London in the late 1960s. I worked as a technician in the chemistry department next door and was fascinated by the rotating cubicles. A paternoster had been installed in the biochem building and, if memory serves me correctly, took you from the ground to the top floor, where Professor Ernst Chain, who had worked with Alexander Fleming, had a large flat. Being German, Prof Chain may have been used to this type of lift, but to staff and visitors the lift presented all kinds of terrors. As it consisted of a series of rotating boxes, people thought that the boxes collapsed as they went over the top of the lift, so a sign was attached that stated: "Over travel is not dangerous."